Curtis, could land her in a heap of shit.
“It’s a long story.”
With a smile that did not comfort her, he crossed his arms over his wide chest. “I have all night. So do you.”
As long as she was tied up this effectively? Yes. “I barely know him. Friend of a friend sort of thing,” she improvised. “I came out here for a change of scenery. I certainly don’t know anything that would help you.”
Her intruder said nothing for a full minute. Instead, he reached down to inch her tank up her body to reveal her stomach beneath. He swept a broad palm over her skin, fingers snagging on her belly ring.
“You’re a young, gorgeous girl. Long hair, tight ass, great tits,” He punctuated the statement by lifting his hand over her bare breast and flicking her nipple, still hard and sore from the detective’s cruel pinch. She gasped as pleasure jolted through her body.
Brenna heard fear and desire could affect the body in very similar ways. Tonight, she was getting firsthand proof. Why else would her nipples be hard if her life was in danger? Heaven help her if he discovered she was wet too. He’d tamper with her just for the joy of messing with her body and head.
Then, who knows? He might kill her for the sport of it.
Before she could protest, his hand settled high on her torso, just beneath her breast, which brushed the top of his hand. There, he planted, clearly with no intent to leave soon.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He ignored her. “You know, you’re just the sort of girl Curtis likes to bring here to fuck. Is that why you’re here?”
Curtis didn’t live here? No wonder this cottage lacked all personal items or any sort of homey clutter. “No.”
“I think I’ll test, just to be sure you’re telling the truth.”
The intruder reached for her again. She had no idea what he intended to do, but if it was anything like what she’d endured earlier that day, she didn’t want to find out. “No! Please…don’t hurt me.”
The biker paused. “So you know what Curtis is into?”
“Based on the conversation I had earlier today with the detective, I guessed. I-I don’t know from experience.”
An odd smile crossed his face. “The detective told you Curtis is a sadist?”
“No, he grabbed me and squeezed my…”
Brenna had a bad feeling if she explained the interaction between she and the hot detective that this intruder would want to test her reaction for himself. God, she didn’t want to repeat that pain.
“He demonstrated,” she corrected.
“Did he? He squeezed your…what?”
“That’s not relevant. Aren’t you here about Curtis?”
“We’ll get back to him in a moment. The detective interests me too. He’s usually a good little Boy Scout. Tell me how he inflicted pain on you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not telling you so that you can do it for yourself.”
“I don’t like causing pain. I’m not a sick fuck, like Curtis.”
“Really?” Sarcasm sprayed out like a garden hose full blast. “You only like to break into a woman’s bedroom, tie her up in her sleep, then fondle and scare the hell out of her.”
“Oh, I haven’t even started to fondle you yet.”
“Don’t touch me!” The words sounded much braver than she felt.
He went on as if she hadn’t even spoken. “I’m wondering…” The intruder eased his hand back to her breast, where he cupped it with a blazing palm. Then he set that thumb back over her nipple to graze and roll it back and forth. “Did he squeeze this one?”
Yes. And even now, she could feel the stranger’s touch acutely through the remnants of the detective’s pain. She was more sensitive than usual. Way more.
“Stop it!”
“It doesn’t feel good?” he asked innocently as he thumbed the hard nub. “Did Detective Martinez squeeze this nipple?”
It felt too good. No way she was going to answer him, not when he’d take that as an invitation.
Suddenly, the bed dipped with his weight as he sat beside her. “I’ve been watching this place for a few days now. Give me some information about Curtis, and I’ll give you the orgasm you couldn’t give yourself by the pool.”
Her jaw dropped as she drew back in horror. “You saw that?”
“Live and in living color. I know exactly what you’re missing. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll give it to you.”
“You can’t,” she blurted.
No one could. Something inside her just froze up every time she tried to come. By herself, she felt silly, the exercise pointless. With a man, she couldn’t be in the moment. She simply focused on the inevitable “goodbye” before it even happened. The relaxing and enjoying they always suggested just never materialized.
For a few years in high school and college, she’d slept with any guy rumored to be well hung or good in bed. Nothing. This intruder, a potent mixture of danger and edgy sex appeal, who hadn’t even told her his name, was even more temporary than most. He could be a cross between Valentino and a porn star and it wouldn’t matter. No way could he get her to come when every other man had failed.
“Try me,” he drawled.
His confidence made her shiver. Yes, a lot of guys had seemed as if they were proud of their bedroom prowess, and some had been better than others. This one… She wondered exactly what he had to back up his conviction.
Brenna shook off the thought. “Not to challenge you, but seriously, you can’t make me come.”
He just laughed. “If I do, you tell me about Curtis’ whereabouts and your relationship with him. Deal?”
Talk about a bargain with the devil…
“And if you fail, you’ll go away and leave me the hell alone?”
“Sure. Whatever. So, it’s a deal?”
Rolling her eyes, Brenna sighed. “This is pointless. You can’t make me come.”
“I can.”
Absolutely not. She was not going to invite a total stranger who had tied her to her own bed fondle her just in case he could finally give her the orgasm she’d been missing all her life. She wasn’t.
“Prove it,” she tossed back.
God, she hated when her impulsive tongue got the better of her common sense.
“If I do, you’ll tell me what I want to know?”
Since what she knew was next to nothing, and he’d never make her come anyway, why not agree? Besides, every moment he was fondling her was a moment he wasn’t trying to kill her. And a moment she could be looking for some way to escape.
“Yes.”
“This is going to be fun.”
She saw a flash of white teeth in the dark. No doubt, he was awfully pleased with himself. As badly as her body would love the gratification, her head knew there was no way he’d be doing anything but eating crow. Then maybe, he’d unbind her. Hopefully. If not…she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
The stranger reached down, disappearing from her line of sight for a moment. He returned, holding something she couldn’t identify in the dark. He pressed a button, and after a click, a short, sharp blade gleamed in the inky air between them.
Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “I-I told you, I’m not into pain. Or blood. Or death.”
“Me, either. But a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do…”
The intruder lowered the blade to her torso, beneath her tank top. Brenna’s heart pumped frantically in her chest, and she could barely hear his words over the roar of blood in her head. She tried to thrash away but every limb was too secure. If she kept that up, she wasn’t going anywhere—except to see Saint Peter.
He fitted the blade under the cotton and made his first cut—into the shirt, not her flesh.
“To see great tits,” he finished with a laugh.
The asshole! He’d been toying with her, enjoying her distress, knowing all the while he had no intention of killing her.
Relief and anger poured through her at once,
flooding her system with something dark and unfamiliar. He yanked up with his arm, his biceps bunching and bulging. The fabric of her shirt began to rip, a little more each time he sawed at it with his imposing strength. Finally, the blade sliced its way through the bottom of her shirt and the cool air teased her bare nipples.
“Holy shit.” He dropped the knife beside her on the bed and stared at her in the muted moonlight. His gaze was almost reverent as he cupped the breast the detective had abused earlier that day. “Cam pinched this nipple, didn’t he? Hard.”
Brenna gave him a shaky nod.
“How hard?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything that painful, especially the second time.”
“He did it more than once?” Incredulity colored the intruder’s voice, then he smiled.
Brenna was confused. Cam, he’d called the detective, as if he knew the guy. Did he? And why did he care about the way Cam had touched her?
“Were you even a little bit aroused?”
What an odd question. Was there a right or wrong answer? Did he want to know that Cam had turned her on? Under normal circumstances, she didn’t think any man wanted to know that another had aroused her. But with this stranger, she got the distinct impression that knowing Cam had affected her would please him.
“When he just touched me, before he pinched…yes.” In fact, in the moments before he’d delivered the pain, she’d thought his touch was one of the most pleasurable ever.
The intruder laughed. She’d didn’t get the joke, but didn’t think it was smart to ask him let her in on it.
“He touched you first? Tell me how.”
“H-how? Ah…well, he put his hand on my breast.”
“Just walked up to you and did this?” The stranger enveloped her sore breast in his palm.
“No. He grabbed my arm and spun me around, so his front covered my back. I…I could feel his hard breaths on my neck and every ripple of his chest when he exhaled. He reached around me and…”
“And you liked it.”
That wasn’t a question. Brenna didn’t reply.
“You’ve been helpful already.”
He bent down and placed a kiss on her abdomen, then his tongue stole into her navel. Unexpected tingles darted down low, and her belly quivered. Her womb clenched.
“Hmm. Responsive,” he whispered on her skin. “I like that in a woman. Let’s see just how much.”
Already he’d gotten more out of her than some guys had after a whole hour of sex, but that hardly meant he was going to be the man to incite her orgasm.
He kissed and nipped his way up her torso then laved her abused nipple. Blood filled it in a rush so quick, it was almost painful…but a sweet sort of pain. She gasped.
“Nice. Very responsive.”
Before she could absolve him of that notion, he laved her other nipple. As if grateful to finally get some attention, it stood straight up almost the instant his tongue touched it. His thumb came behind him and provided enough delicious friction to make her catch her breath.
“Stop. This has gone far enough.” Brenna tried to sound authoritative. Instead, she sounded like a quivering, half-aroused headcase.
“Unless you have very sensitive nipples, I can’t make you come like this. We have a deal. You reneging?”
“I-I… You can’t just…” She sighed in frustration. “It’s not a real agreement.”
“The hell it isn’t. The chance to make you come in exchange for information. Or to get rid of me if I fail. Those were the terms.”
“You can’t mean to hold me to it.”
“Why not? First, it’s a great score to see you completely naked. I have every inch of you to myself. Second, it’s the only way you’re getting me out this door before I have what I want.”
And tied down to the bed she wasn’t in any position to refute him.
Getting rid of him wasn’t what her body wanted, but what would be best for Curtis and her own self-preservation? As much as she didn’t want her gorgeous intruder to know that she was a freak who couldn’t come like a “normal” girl, she wanted him gone more.
“Why do you want Curtis so badly, that you’d seduce an unknown woman in the middle of the night?”
“Believe me, honey, you’re no hardship.”
“You’re not answering me.”
“It’s not something you need to worry about. We have unfinished business, Curtis and I.”
“His business is dangerous. Do you know what he’s been up to? Are you involved?”
“Yes and no, in that order.”
“I certainly didn’t know before I read it in this morning’s paper, and none of this makes sense! Who are you?”
“It’s not important.”
“I can’t come for someone whose name I don’t know. Mental block.”
That wasn’t the only thing that would mentally block her from orgasm, but she had a feeling he was one stubborn man who would insist on finding that out for himself, no matter what.
The intruder paused. “Thorn.”
She frowned. “Is that a first name or a last?”
“What do you need, my full name, social security number and blood type? This is simple—you either tell me where Curtis is or…I make you come and then you tell me.”
Brenna sighed. “I swear, I don’t know anything.”
“We’ve been over this, babe. Besides…” He dedicated both hands to touching her breasts and toying with her nipples. “I’m enjoying the hell out of this. Cam’s hard-on after his visit here makes a shitload of sense.”
It shouldn’t matter if she’d made the detective hard. He was potentially the enemy and she wasn’t likely to see too much of him in the future. But knowing she got to him…well, it did something for her feminine pride. Detective Martinez was a major hottie.
Then again, from what she could see of her intruder, Thorn was easy on the eyes too.
“I’ve got one myself,” he added.
Oh, hell. Like she needed to know that he had an erection. A curl of thrill cut through her belly. Stupid…but it wasn’t like she had a lot of control over the sensation.
“And I’m dying to know what you’ve got down south,” he murmured in the dark.
Before she could protest, Thorn jerked the sheet away from her waist, past her hips, down her legs, then he ripped away the wisp of lace around her hips. Thanks to her bound and spread ankles, he had instant access to everything.
Thorn didn’t hesitate, didn’t work up to his next touch. He cupped the mound of her sex, fingers dipping just inside her lips to test. He slid right over slick, sensitive tissues, his fingers covering the quivering button of her clit.
He flashed her another smile in the dark. “Wet and bare, my favorite kind of pussy. It’s going to be my pleasure to find out how many ways I can make you come.”
“I don’t think…”
He circled his fingers over her clit and bent to take that sore nipple in his mouth. At that point, thinking wasn’t happening. She bucked and arched as sensation tore through her. A burning ache broiled between her legs. A line of tingles zinged